Happy Bert'sday!

Berti turned 30 on Friday!

And you know, 30 has so far proved the yummiest age for guys. Or maybe it's just that as the years go by, the peer group that I find attractive keeps the same pace. Whatever. Suffice to say that somewhere around their mid-twenties is when long-necked boys become bewhiskered, sexy, broad-shouldered men, and that Saxon is no exception.

To honor the occasion, I kidnapped Bert to a hotel in the spa town of Baden-Baden, directly across from the Roman bath house (Friedrichsbad); and we spent his birthday in our birthday suits.

Yep -- no better way to say, "hey, check me out, I'm 30!" than being naked in front of a bunch of rich people! It was really fun. At the top of an enormous, carpeted marble staircase are two separate doors for the men's and women's changing rooms, so we had to part ways for the first couple steps of the fourteen-part ritual; but the lady at the posh front desk assured us we'd meet up in the main baths around step six, so I pushed open the frosted-glass door and stepped into... opulence.

Chandeliers, mirrors, cushioned seats, hairdryers, fluffy towels on heaters. Simple, elegant signs posted at each step inform you exactly what is to be done at each station and for how long ("16 Minuten," "3 Minuten" -- adorable Germans, even relaxation is timed and organized!). I follow the instructions to the changing booth, hang my clothes on the hangers, attach the locker key to my wristband, and step out. Naked. Okay. We are supposed to be naked at this point, right? I look around, but don't see anyone else in order to check their be-robed status. Gingerly, nakedly peek around the corner which leads to the baths. See someone!

She's dressed.

Er.

She spots me and waves me over. "Good day!" she says. "Do you speak German?"

I nod (nakedly).

"Then welcome to to the Friedrichsbad! Here is the first step, the shower room. After you've finished, you can take a sheet to lay on the bench in the next room, the hot-air bath. Just follow the signs, they'll take you through. Any questions?"

Since I still didn't see any other bathers, I couldn't help asking. "Just one. I see you're fully dressed. Am I supposed to be this, well, nude??"

Her, feigning surprise: "Certainly not!"

Before my heart could quite stop, she burst out laughing. "Haha, just kidding! The Friedrichsbad is of course entirely in the buff. Enjoy your visit."

I cracked up. I mean, who plays such a joke on visitors? How could you not? Her laid-back attitude dissolved any remaining sense of self-consciousness and I stepped on through into another world.

The hot-air sauna was particularly wonderful: pinkly glowing women recline on wooden benches in peaceful silence, and after around minute 3.46 you feel your bones start to melt. Enjoyable as it was, though, by step six (the steam sauna) I started looking for Bert. This is where the baths were supposed to mix, and I wanted to find my birthday boy! So I pushed the door open to the next room and found a hot pool.

Full of soaking middle-aged men.

Who turned and looked at me.

Feeling a little bit sheepish again, I scuttled into the next room. Here only one person, also a guy, was stewing in some bubbles. Still no Bert. So I had a seat in the bubbles, too, and tried to act natural. (Ha, very natural!) But finally, a tall gorgeous figure appeared through a side door, and from then on the evening was perfect.

It's funny how quickly you get used to a bunch of nekkid folks. In fact it's quite pleasant, much more so than at some public pool where we're trying to self-consciously stuff ourselves into spandex and wire in an attempt to simultaneously cover and flatter our bodies. When really, we humans are a rather nice-looking species already! Women especially are much prettier au naturale than in pinching, bulging, garishly-colored swimsuits: their curves are allowed to flow in smooth, uninterrupted lines that make hippy girls in particular look like lovely ripe pears. Unabashed, Bert and I soaked and swam and bubbled and frolicked and steamed until our fingers were so wrinkly we probably could have gained enough traction to gecko up the walls. We'd been hanging out for almost three hours by the time we reluctantly went back to our respective dressing rooms, applied warm towels and lotion and hairdryers, and re-emerged, damp and pink-cheeked, into the real world.

Dinner was a cozy Sicilian place with about six tables and Italians yelling their southern dialect back and forth into the kitchen. "Maria! Lelinguineaifruttidimare!" (We even heard one waiter yell, "Capisch?!") The food was of course delicious. A short walk through downtown took us back to our posh hotel and we slept until the last minute before going down to a china-served breakfast.

Pleasant as Baden-Baden is, though, we realized it's not one of those places we'd really want to live. Most German towns take their sense of belonging from a nearly tangible shared heritage; Baden-Baden residents, though, seem to share only the fact of their wealth. We went for a walk the next day and had a seat on a bench next to a path where rich mothers clopped by in their high heels to pick up their kids from some Saturday-morning program. All the same fashionably-dressed, blond-highlighted women in their early forties with the same Esprit-backpack-carrying schoolaged children. We had fun speculating about their jobs and wondering where the fathers were (playing tennis, we decided). They were probably perfectly nice people; but not quite our crowd.

On your 30th, you've gotta do something posh. But for my 28th, we'll probably go camping. (Maybe naked.)

Happy birthday, darling!

My mommy is here!!!

She arrived on Friday, October 3rd -- a.k.a. "Tag der deutschen Einheit," the national holiday celebrating Germany's reunification in 1990. Well, we had our own reunification to celebrate! Namely, by running around the Frankfurt Airport (and environs) in an attempt to ransom the cat, Lucy, from the Evil Bureaucratic German Customs Office. Who actually turned out to be quite nice. While still very bureaucratic. It took about three hours from start to finish, and we covered quite a lot of ground running from Office A to Office Z to Room X to Storage Unit Y to Vetrinary Service L and back to Room X. But in the end, we had a healthy, curious kitty and a towel full of healthy, curious cat poo (kindly presented to us as a gesture of thanks while still trapped in her kennel in the back of the taxi).

This was made up for the next day when we zoomed off to the Deutsches Weinlesefest in search of Neuer Wein:


We also poked around a farmer's market, and today, Sunday, we found The Perfect Apartment. Really! Perfect! One of my colleagues at the Fachhochschule mentioned that her kids don't come to visit so often any more, leaving her with a rarely-used, furnished apartment upstairs in her house that does nothing but gather dust. So I asked if a nice American lady can come rent it from her... We met up today to have a peek, and it's fabulous. Adorable, two-bedroom, hardwood-floored, newly-renovated, furnished, with an attic for storage and a washer downstairs and a cat-friendly garden. Not to mention the nicest landlady you could wish for. We walked in and fell in love. And then found out that the rent is completely reasonable and includes utilities! The house is in a nice residential neighborhood in eastern Mannheim -- on the other side of the Neckar river -- and only 40 minutes away from our place by Strassenbahn. It's also a mere 15 minutes away from downtown Mannheim... we're already fantasizing about meeting up of a Saturday afternoon for shopping and coffee downtown.

Life is good!!!

Amy and John

...are a great pair. I knew the perfect Mr. Amy was out there; I'm just so happy she found him so soon.

John, thank you for taking care of my loved ones.

My Right to Vote

A little follow-up to Mom's post of the same title:

I opened the mailbox yesterday to find a fat package from the Pima County Recorder's Office. Across the top was a cute little banner that said "Official Election Mail", and inside was indeed an official election ballot.

I went immediately inside, sat down at my desk, got a thick black pen, and filled in the most perfectly complete oval the election office has ever seen. Then, sealed, signed, and adorned with about a billion Euros worth of postage (or maybe it was just four), I sent that bad boy right back to the Pima County Recorder.

And damn that felt good. Thank you, thank you, Alice Paul and everyone else who suffered jail and indignities so that I could be counted a citizen, too.

Getting political

So on this side of the pond, I dig out American media coverage of the elections through youtube. Not that there aren't plenty of soundbites on the radio over here -- not to mention magazine and newspaper articles -- but there's something to be said about listening to the sound of candidates' own voices instead of German voiceovers.

Besides, Saturday Night Live (<-- fyi, a video) isn't broadcast over here. :oP

Anyway, so one of the tidbits I found was a recent interview of Obama -- by Bill O'Reilly.

I've found O'Reilly's bullying, arrogant style off-putting in the past; and as I clicked on the interview, I cringed to think of that petty nastiness in the same room with reason and dignity.

But if you have time, seriously check it out. The two are great opposite each other. O'Reilly is aggressive, but not mean; he interrupts a lot, but remains respectful and self-deprecatory enough to balance it out. And Obama handles himself like a pro. His responses are pointed, educated, honest, and wise (I think it's safe to say I'm now quite in love with him). You can see how the two enjoy the duel; at the end, O'Reilly even spontaneously challenges Obama to a basketball game. "You've got height," Obama shoots back without missing a beat, "but I've got speed." O'Reilly returns with, "If I win, I get to be Secretary of State." The interview is tough; but, impossibly, ends up leaving both parties very likeable.

Too bad we don't see this more often in American political discourse.

Happy Birthday Dad!

The world has now officially been a better place for 50 years, since my Dad was born on September 12, 1958.

There are lots of things I wish I could do to honor the occasion.

For one thing, I would give him this: Which of course would be in the middle of: Where we could go for a walk in: After which we'd race our:
But I guess all of those things would be rather heavy to ship overseas.

So instead on your birthday, I wish you:

And


And



Wish I could be there to celebrate with you! Have fun until I can get there in a couple months!

Love you, Dad.

Catching "cold"?

So everyone here still seems to adhere to that old folk wisdom that being cold will make you sick.

You've all heard it: "Don't go out in the rain without an umbrella, you'll catch a cold." "Put on a jacket, you don't want to catch cold." Part of the reason Germans won't let you walk around their houses without slippers on is that allowing your bare feet to come in contact with the cold floor will certainly mean having your death of pneumonia on their consciences.

Yet I've just never quite been able to buy this. I understand how being cold might make you feel susceptible to bugs and viruseses -- you're shivering and weak, just like you also shiver and feel weak when you have a fever. In addition, if a fever heats you up to fight off bugs, then perhaps it could stand to reason that, conversely, not enough heat means not enough bug-fighting.

But even if we accept that being cold weakens the immune system, don't you still have to come into contact with an infectious disease before you get infected? Can you really just pick up a cold out of nowhere because your socks get wet? I can see how wet socks might correlate with other factors that have historically encouraged sickness, such as poor/unhealthy living conditions, but I can't believe that it's the wet socks themselves which spontaneously generate a virus.

So enter last weekend, when we were in the Erzgebirge to celebrate two of Bert's friends' birthdays. In a fit of sentimentality, everyone decided to engage in an old pasttime: sneaking into the village swimming pool after midnight and skinny dipping under the starlight.

It was actually really fun. The stars were bright and thick that far away from any city, and the night was warm -- but the water was icy cold! So naturally, Alex was just sure that we'd all get sick. "Quatsch!" I retorted. "Temperature does not make you sick. Germs make you sick!"

Well... am I just as clueless as I'm accusing everyone else of being? Yesterday, I started to feel a tickle at the back of my throat; and today I'm pretty sure my body's fighting something off. Is this coincidence? Or was Alex right?

Zwei Jahre in Deutschland

Two years ago yesterday -- September 2, 2006 -- I landed in Germany with Shauna (and a bladder infection, haha!).

Funny how I ran across our flight itineraries just now while reorganizing some old papers. Tucson to Köln. How can you feel so old looking back at yourself from only two measly years ago? I remember dragging those huge bags to the Tucson Airport in the dark of the early morning; Mom taking pictures; the three of us giddy with nerves and excitement and exhaustion and the attempt to avoid looking too closely at impending separation. Sitting jetlagged in the window of the hostel in Köln, staring at the Rhein river and the unknown future.

It was a pretty self-conscious reverie, too. "Gosh, in a couple years I'll look back at this and think of all that's happened since then!" Well, you called it, self.

Bert and I just got back from an absolutely amazing ten days in Greece. (I'll have to blog about the trip in another post!) But landing in the Frankfurt Airport this time was a weird experience, in that it was so... absolutely un-foreign. Not quite like coming home -- that's more of a landing-in-Seattle feeling -- but definitely similar. We were walking from the baggage claim out to the trains and I was struck by Frankfurt's sheer normalness compared with the hot, wild, ancient, Mediterranean culture we had just left, with its fascinatingly unfamiliar alphabet and undiscovered corners; and I was surprised by a sudden itch to pick up and move to Athens, to go do it all again and start from square one and figure out how people live their lives there as well as here.

And then I looked at my tall bearded Saxon. And I heard the announcer in the train thank us for "träweling vis ze Deutsche Bahn;" and I realized that Athens can wait, I'm exactly where I want to be.

In the pink

Mmm, it's Thursday evening Feierabend. You know that feeling when you come to the end of the week, and realize that you've tidily completed not only all your work but also a ton of to-do's, both big and small, and now it's still light outside and the aroma of neighbors' barbecues is floating on the lovely summer evening, through the open balcony door, and right into your neat, cozy home office? And your boyfriend is laughing on the phone outside while he waits for you at the table on your new balcony, a spot which has quickly become your communal wind-down point to share Hefeweizen, the sunset, and the day's stories? Gosh, can a person marinate in any more contentment??

I wonder if this is why I've noticed a tendency of late to reach for the color pink. Weird; I was never drawn to this color before. But I just now pulled my shiny, dark pink memory stick out of the computer and regarded it for a moment. Why had I chosen this one at the hardware store sale last week, and not the silver?

Well, because pink is just such a happy color.

And I sure am happy.

Love to all... :)

Multitasking

Aren't women supposed to be good multitaskers? I'm a terrible multitasker. I can't focus on even two different stimuli at once -- listening to music while trying to work, for example, is asking for failure. It's one of the reasons I'm not good at talking on the phone: unless I'm in an empty white box, I can't focus on the conversation and my surroundings at the same time. Even if said surroundings are not asking me to interact with them, it's the sheer fact of their being there that distracts me. Interesting ad goes by on the side of a bus? I trail off mid-sentence. And god help the person on the other end if the TV is on! I'm like one of those toads who are easily hypnotized by blinking lights. This can't be normal. Help!

Meanwhile -- new specs!

I don't wanna go to bed, yet! I wanna show you my new glasses from Capitol Hill in Seattle! (Thaaaaank you, Shauna!)

Here are the ho-hum old ones. Quiet in the library, please.


But oh dear, look how cute now, I just have to take a mirror picture! In this terrific bathroom lighting! Yeah!


Now the Strict English Teacher role-playing can really commence. (Did I just publish that...???)

June: Baguettes, Döner, and Fajitas

Well, ain't I suddenly just the blogging fool?

Sorry for the neglect of late, dear blog. These last few weeks -- wait, months -- have just been fantastically intense.

Let's go back a few of those weeks to when Mom arrived in Mannheim (go free ticket vouchers!) on June 19th, and when we, about 3.5 seconds after she de-trained, hopped right back on an ICE headed for Paris.

Yep: Paris. Ooh, that sounds nice, I'm gonna say it again: Paris. Heee. And you know what, in accordance with all gushing cliche over the last two centuries, I will confirm that that freaking city is freaking beautiful. Where else can you casually point your camera upwards and shoot a photo like this?

I'll let Mom tell you about most of our adventures, including the sweetly naive American soldier dudes who asked us if there were any good jazz bars in town. I'll just say that we always have the best time together, whether it's ooohing over Rodin sculptures or making up complex histories for random passersby and seeing how long we can "converse" about them while keeping a straight face.

("Oh, I'm glad she's up on her feet again," Mom would say, suddenly nodding at a lady strutting by with a poodle.

I'd look up and catch who she was talking about. "Who, Francesca there? Yes, that was pretty tragic about the lion-taming accident." Here I'd shake my head sadly.

"Well," Mom continued, "at least Paolo was there to fight the lions off. Who knew that his sneaking into the circus to see Francesca would have been such a stroke of luck?"

And so forth. We're so weird. But at least one of us knows where she gets it from...!)

That Sunday, we got back to Ludwigshafen just in time for the Germany-Turkey game in the European Cup. I gotta admit to some nervousness leading up to the game: there has been no little social friction between the two communities in the past, and Ludwigshafen itself has the largest Turkish population in Germany. And if previous games were any indication, there was going to be some riotous celebration long into the night afterward, regardless of who won. I just hoped no hotblooded drunken soccer fan took it as an opportunity to pick a long-awaited fight with his neighbor.

Thankfully, no one else was in the mood for brawling, either. The game was certainly suspenseful; Mom, Nadja, Bert, and I watched it in a beer garden with a projector and giant screen. After Germany won 2-1, the town did indeed erupt -- but fortunately, fans on both sides were almost painfully conscientious to avoid provoking each other. Goes to show you how weird the communities' relationship is when the biggest reports on the news the next day were that, hey, nobody set anything on fire last night!

Ludwigshafener celebrate peacefully in Berliner Platz, the city center

The following weekend, because we just decided, hey, we're not exhausted enough, Mom helped Bert & me move into a lovely new second-storey apartment in Friesenheim.

Friesenheim is still a part of the greater Ludwigshafen amoeba, but unlike Lu-Mitte (where we were before) it is decidedly lacking in ugly highrises. And the apartment is brilliant. Built in 2002, everything is spacious and bright and very well designed, including an enormous balcony that runs the entire length of the place and looks out over greenery. And -- I have my own office! It's cozy and neat and painted a warm terra cotta. As I sit here, I'm watching the evening descend through the double glass doors that access the balcony. It also moonlights as a guest room... hint! hint! ;)

The move took place on a Saturday, and Mom was a champion helping to unpack and settle us in while Bert & I had to work the next week. Specifically, I had been contracted by the Fachhochschule in Heidelberg to give a 4 1/2 hour lecture on German Society & Culture to a group of international visiting business students. Piece of cake! said my brain. Foolish brain. Turns out, four and a half hours is a really long damn time! But it was worth it in the end. After the lecture, some students even came up to say it was the most enjoyable session they'd had in the program so far!

I felt bad having to work so much while Mom was visiting, though. Happily, Bert, shedding his Clark Kent attire and donning his tight Superboyfriend underoos (in this case, bike shorts), rode to the rescue by taking off from work to lead Mom on a little bike tour of Ladenburg, one of the cutest towns on the Neckar.

Then that evening, Heidi and Jens arrived from Chemnitz for a weeklong visit; and the day after that, we picked up Nigel at the Mannheim train station. Seems we moved to a bigger place just in time! And just to top the numbers off, a few more friends came over that night to sit on our new balcony and enjoy Mom's delicious spaghetti for ten, and help us create a colony of empty bottles with which to christen the kitchen.

I should mention that my friends and Mom got on like a house on fire. She's so laid-back and funny that I don't think anyone really notices that "someone's mom" is there; she's just one of the group. Bert's mom is kind of like that too, actually... in fact, Bert even commented on that, saying that although they barely speak each other's languages, the two "würden sich trotzdem gut verstehen." :D

Alas, all good things come to an end... I had to take her back to the train station the next day, Friday. We would have been sadder about it, had we not known that we were going to see each other a week later in Seattle!

But first there was more wine to be drunk. The next day, we were joined by two more weekend visitors: Bert's friend Christina and her partner, Stefan, both of whom had just returned from bicycling around the world for two years (!) in order to take pledges for cancer research (!!). They had the most amazing stories and pictures, including one of a city rising before them through a mountain pass: Katmandu, the capital of Nepal (!!!).

In return for regaling us with tales of high adventure, Nigel fed everyone fajitas:

They were a hit.

We like-a the sal-sa!

With seven people, however, even our spacious new apartment had reached its capacity, and Christina and Stefan happily pitched their well-used tent on the balcony for the night.

All of this was over the course of about two weeks. Two days after hugging the last of our guests goodbye, I was packing a bag myself to head off to the States until August.

But that is the stuff of another blog entry...

Fun videos

Thanks to Amy for the hilarious Paris Hilton for President ad!

And to Sven for the jammin' We Germans. "Football play vee better zan you..." Cuuuute!

Heat of Summer

As the name suggests, the "World Spice Merchants Herb & Tea House" in Seattle looks like Marco Polo's cellar. It's reminiscent of some ancient apothecary shop, its walls lined with mysterious glass orbs filled with beguiling powders and leaves, and the cozy sitting area, replete with a large picture book of ye olde historickal mapps of the worlde.

The moment you step in, you're sucked into a swirling orgy of olfactory sensation that makes you understand why cats run around in circles when they smell catnip. There are pure spices, spice mixes, rubs, teas, salts, herbs, all in various forms of ground or dried or whole, all arranged in beckoning rows with an invitation to open each jar and have a whiff. Most conversation in the shop consists of, "Wow, what is that one?" and "Ohmansmellthisone!" and "Oooh, imagine this on salmon -- I mean pork ribs -- I mean in a curry -- I mean from a spoon!" They give you a notepad to record your desired purchases, which you then take to the counter to collect your hoard.

It was while we were standing in line that my brother reached over and plucked one particular glass from the wall. It was full of what looked like some sort of whole, plum-sized fruit, oddly dried and wrinkled like a jarful of shrunken heads.

"What's that?" asked Shauna. I could already see her calculating its potential culinary value, recipes and spice properties flashing by her eyes like a vegetal terminator.

"This," said Michael, producing the jar with the pleased academic demeanor of an archaeologist exhibiting a particularly coveted artifact, "is the bhut jolokia, the hottest pepper in the world. You know the Scoville scale for capsaicin content -- in other words, pepper heat units? Well, bell peppers rank zero on this scale; jalapenos, around 10,000. The mighty habanero pushes the 100,000 mark. This little puppy" -- he turned the lid gleefully -- "weighs in at over one million Scoville units."

Shauna's and my eyes bugged.

Michael stuck his nose in it.

"Hm, kind of fruity," he pronounced. We tentatively sniffed. He was right -- it smelled vaguely plummy, and not hot at all. We nodded appreciatively.

Then Michael looked up at us and a slow, mischievous smile spread across his face. "Ohhhh, no," I said, reaching for the jar. He evaded me and glanced around to be sure no one was watching. We were morbidly curious, anyway, although continued to murmur vague warnings as we leaned forward in fascination. Michael carefully extracted the tip of one evilly wrinkled fruit and nipped off a corner with his fingernail -- a speck about the size of a grain of coarse sea salt. He glanced around once more, eyed the speck, and popped it into his mouth.

For a couple of moments, he chewed thoughtfully while the three of us stood there looking at each other. Then beads of sweat began popping out on his forehead. His eyes began to water. He inhaled deeply through his nose and blew softly out his mouth. "Are you okay?" his sisters asked tentatively.

But Michael continued to look thoughtful, the only evidence of bhut jolokia ingestion being that he was slowly turning redder and shinier than the other jars of peppers behind him.

"I think so," he finally croaked. "Well... actually, no. This is one of the most painful experiences I've ever had."

"What's it like? Should we get you some water?"

"No, no. But it does feel like my tongue is being pounded with porcupines."

"Is it getting worse?? Can we do anything??"

"Yes," he croaked again. "Buy two of them."

Hello, jetlag, my old friend...

...It's going now on five a.m.
The alarm is far fro-om beeping
And I'm laying here, u-u-unsleeping
Wide awaaaake since a-round two-thir-ty
Or was it three?
In this dark and silence.

Fool I was, I took a nap
Falling into that old trap
Now my brain knows not if it's here or there
Or still over the ocean somewhere
Well, screw thiiiiis, I guess I'll just get up
Before sunup.
Wow, this house, is silent.

Let's see how quietly can I
Take this thing off "standby"?
Maybe I can catch up on the blog!
Or on some of this email backlog!
I'll sit here waitiiiing to feel lively and inspired
Oh man, I'm tired.
And it sure is silent.

Clacking typing echoes through
This slowly-light'ning livingroom
While I keep glancing toward the bedroom door
Through which lightly emanates a snore
And I wonderrr, should I get up aaand make some tea?
Or first go pee?
Some birds break the silence.

Stirrings come from down the hall
And the thump of a footfall
Announces that it's fin-al-ly morning!
That'd be great -- but against all warning
I think now I just want to get back in bed.
And sleep like the dead.
But it's no longer silent...!

Knight in Deutschem Panzer

If there's one thing that can make a girl swoon, it's when her guy comes to the rescue.

I know, I know. Am I a prisoner of societally-dictated gender role cliches?? Well, the key is that the rescuing must truly be necessary. It can certainly be overdone and cross the line between assistance and macho condescension. For example, bringing jumper cables to revive a dead car battery = eternal gratitude! Taking the picnic basket from my hands with a "Dafür sind die Männer" comment is somewhat less necessary. I know I should be grownup enough to accept any form of aid with the graciousness with which it was intended, but every time a male friends gasps in horror as I pick up a folding chair (or small backpack, or laundry basket, or jug of milk, or...) I quietly wonder just what other normal activities he thinks I'm incapable of. Yeah, unfortunate and ungrateful, but there it is. And I'm sure the line is different for every person, and women more laid-back and self-confident than I am would probably let the gallant helper be gallant. We just got the short end of the stick for a couple thousand years too long under the guise of "protection" (from, for example, the strenuous decision-making of voting), so some of us are still a bit sensitive about the issue. ;o)

That said, there are indeed times when humans require help from other humans. And when the source of this help is from your boyfriend, well!

For example, Bert is a born conflict manager. This is the result of a nice little cocktail of handy personality characteristics, among them being an extraordinary ability to say the most direct thing in the most tactful manner, and his seeming inability to lose his cool. Seriously, I have never met a person more unflappable. Underscoring this is an acute sense of justice and manners, all of which result in a guy who is never shy to confront what others (including myself) might view as sticky social situations.

Take last Wednesday, when I tried to return a pair of shoes to a store and the saleslady reacted in exactly the way you hope they don't react when you try to return something: she seemed almost personally offended, treating me as if I was trying to pull something over on her and making no secret about her deep suspicion that I was the Antichrist. I returned home fuming like a teakettle.

Bert, upon hearing the story, took me by the hand, walked right back to the shop, and calmly asked for the manager (by name, of course -- ever foresightful, he'd looked it up on the store's website). He then proceeded to calmly explain that, while we would certainly accept any decision dictated by store policy, we were dissatisfied with the unfriendly way in which the policy had been explained.

Of course the saleslady was right there. "You can complain all you like!" she spat.

Bert: "Can you repeat your statement, please?"

"I said you can complain all you like but it's not going to change anything!"

Bert turned to the manager and said, "Does this attitude conform to the quality of customer service promised on that sign behind you?"

He was reasonable, direct, unshakable. Yapping at him, the saleslady looked like an uncivilized shrew. Of course, we were able to exchange the shoes in the end. I am quite sure I wouldn't have been able to conduct the argument that well by myself, and was immensely pleased and proud to have him at my side.

There are other times when his sticking up for me is more subtle, but I am no less grateful. For example, I have lost count of the number of times people blithely blurt out coarse American stereotypes in my presence, apparently forgetting -- or not caring -- that there is an American standing right here. It happens all the time: once, after I laughingly recounted the way people used to mix up Manu's home country of Switzerland with Sweden, a guy scoffed, "Well, yeah, but the Americans are all like that, aren't they? They think we run around in Lederhosen eating Sauerkraut." And I snapped, "Just like all Germans think we are clueless ignoramuses in cowboy hats?" The air got a little tense. And Bert, instead of retreating embarrassed from his girlfriend's awkward conflict, put an arm around my waist and made a dry comment about showing manners and social sensitivity to international guests. I felt like a little kid whose big brother has just asked the playground bully if there seems to be a problem.

Of course I can fight my own battles. And I often do. But there's something about knowing that your boyfriend is on your team, that the moment he hears of any injustice done to you he polishes up his lance and mops the floor with the offender, that makes my feminine heart secretly skip a beat.

Heimat

Well hi there, Blog!

What a month. There's been so much afoot these last few weeks that, now that I finally get a moment to write, the idea of meticulously recording it all is a bit daunting. Which is mildly frustrating, seeing as how I constantly wander about composing blog entries in my head -- noticing something in the train, for example, and imagining precisely how I'll capture it in writing, just as soon as my itchy fingers can get to a keyboard -- and then by the time I finally, ceremoniously take a seat in front of my expectant little computer... the "service brain soon" light is on. I can almost feel the tumbleweeds bouncing lazily along the short distance between my ears.

But I've gotta begin somewhere, so why not at the beginning?

May got started with a spontaneous leap aboard a plane on the 1st, after my Mom called with the news that the mysterious, grapefruit-sized lump on her ovary was to be removed that day. Thank God it turned out to be nothing more than that! A mysterious, removable, if curiously large, lump. The surgery itself went off without a hitch; however, it was the parade of complications during recovery that sent the two of us on a zoomy ride through the nauseous, sometimes-inflatable world of Abdominal Surgery Recovery.

For the full story -- or at least, for the hasty blog entries shot off during each brief reprieve between adventures, when we'd look wild-eyed at each other and gasp the soon-to-be infamous words, "The worst seems to be over!" -- check out Mom's blog to the right.

For the rest of the story, suffice to say that, no matter the circumstances, it's always really hard to leave Mom again. I don't know how our family does it, remaining so close while so geographically far away. We become barnacles during those visits. In Pittsburgh, for example, I slept on a very fluffy air mattress on Mom's bedroom floor, cozy as could be; yet as if that weren't slumber-party enough, one morning while waiting for everyone else to get up and around, I just got up and clambered into Mom's bed so that we could whisper and giggle together without disturbing the rest of the household.

My aunt Sherry doesn't quite know what to make of this. She's from such a huge, close-knit extended family, who all grew up together and continue to live in the same town, that she has quite the opposite problem and sometimes needs to come up for air. Whereas I've never really had the opportunity to take my family for granted: we've been widely scattered since I was twelve. What's more, my immediately family are the only form of "home base" I've ever known. I counted once, and I've changed addresses no less than 22 times in my 27 years. Therefore my home has never been a geographical location: instead, I derive my entire sense of belonging from our family's consistent, open love and support for each other. Even the fact that everyone lives so far apart only seems to reinforce this bond.

Which brings me to a topic that I've been musing over off and on ever since I got to Germany: that is, the whole question of geographical belonging.

I used to have such difficulty with that everyday question, "Where are you from?" because I had never spent more than two or three years in one location, and what on earth was I supposed to say? Even the Air Force Base where I was born doesn't exist any more. In recent years, I've responded with "Arizona," at first for convenience's sake -- and because, really, who actually cares? -- and later because, hey, I did spent 13 years there.

But you know, I've slowly realized that saying I'm from Arizona really is just a convenient answer to a common question. Which is all anyone is looking for when they ask, anyway. But do I really think I'm Arizonan? What does it mean to be "from" somewhere? It seems this question usually comes with a particular set of assumptions, like, you have roots there, maybe were born there, cheer for a local team, have an address where the family gathers, etc. "I'm from Brooklyn." "I'm from Michigan." Not that it's so atypical of us Americans to hop all over the place, but regardless of current geographical distance or frequency of visits -- or indeed, level of affection for the place! -- most people at least have a town they'd identify as being "back home".

Arizona isn't that, though. I thought it might be; but now that I'm away, I look back at it fondly, but I realize I don't -- and maybe never did -- actually belong there. I've never had roots in Arizona; none of my family live there any more; I have no plans to return. I don't even miss it.

Maybe you can humor me a moment while I attempt to sort out what Arizona does mean to me. I absolutely have a soft spot for it. Tucson was the longest I've ever stayed in one town, and still whenever I hear it mentioned in the news or in song lyrics, I get all excited because, hey, I know that place! And you can't spend so much time in one region without it leaving some sort of mark on you. I love Mexican food, think saguaro cacti are cool, and am definitely unused to the oppressive dark of northern-latitude winters.

And yet I realize, looking back, that a lot of those ways in which the place itself seemed to have impacted my identity are surprisingly superficial. Food? Fondness for a cactus? Neustadt left me with wine and fondness for the grapevine -- and lord knows the growth and self-discovery that occurred there were no less than that which occurred in Arizona. Of course I spent 13 times as long in Arizona as I did in Neustadt; but honestly, is sheer volume of time the most deciding element in the role a place takes in shaping your identity? Looking back, I never really became any more a part of the community in Tucson than I did in Neustadt (especially considering I spent the first half of my stay in Tucson simply enduring the place and plotting escape!). I could certainly tell you the good places to eat and when the Street Fair took place; but never once did I watch Wildcat football or care anything for local politics. I never even learned Spanish (to my detriment). Shauna and I spent four wonderful years in a community choir, and yet whenever we'd travel on our spring tour to some faraway destination, the idea that we were supposed to "represent" Tucson just didn't apply to me. Those other, blond singers who had gone to such-and-such an elementary school and had grandparents in Green Valley, they were Tucson. I'd only just arrived. Even up until the moment I left, people who actually were from Tucson were telling me I had an accent. Maybe that's why I'm not shocked to discover that, despite the thrill of familiarity that comes with seeing a desert landscape, it's no longer accompanied by a sense of belonging. I have lived in lots of places to which I still feel that sense of connection, even propriety; yet I notice that Arizona once again feels like someone else's community. Familiar, to be sure. Loved, of course. Home? Well... not really, no.

Which is odd, since I sure lay a lot of personal claim on it over here. You'd think I was a cowboy from Bisbee. I get a kick out of tossing its exoticism around in discussions with my German friends ("You think this is hot?" or "That ain't Mexican food!") and point proudly to its familiar rectangle shape on the U.S. map. And to an extent this is true: I'm certainly not from New England, the South, or the Midwest. Arizona is my largest reference point in the States, so I play it up as actually being who I am.

But I'm sheepish to admit that this is mostly just out of a need to pick someplace to be "from". Germans are fiercely loyal to their own regional origins: being a Bavarian or Saxon or Hamburger or Rheinlander comprises an inseparable piece of their identity. Against that, I feel more or less compelled to at least say there's a place out there that is my own home. Yet this identification of myself as Arizonan is purely relative: this is the place they know, so that's the place I know. That was the last place I was before I came here. It needs this backdrop of comparison to make it mine.

(Which of course doesn't make me any less excited to show it to Bert when we travel there at Christmas. Whatever its current role, it's still where I spent many years of the most recent last chapter of my life. Plus I gotta get some decent Mexican food!)

All this does make me feel a bit homeless. Which is nothing new, and nothing automatically good or bad. My current setting simply throws it into relief, and so I get more occupied with the fact than I have before. On good days, I feel enriched and free, to hell with Tonio Kröger's bourgeois disrespect for "Zigeuner im grünen Wagen." On bad days, I feel floating and anchorless.

On most days, I just don't give a rat's ass. Wherever my family is, I am home.

Sigh.

Shouldn't they both be campaigning against McCain...?

Thoughtity thought thoughts

Happy April, Weinstrasse! Ahh... I'm loving this whole, whatsit, "changing seasons" concept. It's a lovely way to run a climate. The newest installment is called Spring, and it's like Europe has sat up, stretched, reached over, and turned on a light. Suddenly the streets are lined with various fluffinesses the colors of Easter eggs: pink blooming trees, neon-green buds, cheery purple bushes, trumpeting yellow daffodils that look like they're whistling at you as you pass, all under the sort of bright blue skies that shine down beatifically on every kid's crayon rendition of his neighborhood. All Ludwigshafen needs now are some curlicues emerging from quaintly irregular chimneys and a huge, quarter-circle sun thrusting squiggly beams out of a substantial corner of the sky. What a change!

Well, since, over the last month or so, I've gathered a fair little collection of half-finished blog posts, I think I'll just stick 'em all together in one big musings-style entry. So here goes...!


Weird Humans

Bert and I watched a program the other day about researchers attempting to improve aerospace engineering by harking back to the expert: nature. It was pretty nifty, touching on historical attempts to fly (all those Renaissancey, bat-winged things), as well as current innovations and future projects. Did you know that, until a few years ago, biologists had no idea how flies could actually fly? And now guys at Stanford are zooming their own little remote-control bug robots around, commenting that simply imitating insect structure really is the most efficient way to construct a flying apparatus. We watched model planes whose wings actually flapped, with soft, silicon oval feathers on the tips (!) and all-terrain vehicles that scurried along on six legs. Finally, the program concluded with attempts to make machines walk upright on two legs -- and, of course, the most successful models have been the ones that end up with an almost creepily human gait.

Which brings me to wondering, what is it about us people that makes us just so darned curious about everything? Why are we compelled to imitate every neat-looking natural phenomenon we see -- or even capable of perceiving them as imitable? What other animal looks down at itself and says, "Hey, how am I doing this? Let's build a model!"? Who was the first person to observe a sheep, fluffy in its wool, and say, "That looks warm. Give me that!" or, "Ooh, pretty feathers. Let's decorate ourselves," or, "Hey, that bird is flying. I wanna do that, too!"

We humans are weird. And very, very cool.


Bonny Soonds

I found the link to one of the bands we heard in a pub in Inverness, called "Schiehallion." I could have listened to these guys for hours. (Sing, that is -- when they talked, I didn't understand a word!)

Goo on and give 'em a wee visit. But beware of listening to the music samples: you'll have the catchy, r-rolling, Highland-dancing-inducing songs stuck in your head for days!


Elbow Room

I've started to really enjoy my regular flights back to the States. And not only for the obvious reason of imminent family time: I also mean (to a much lesser degree, of course!) the flight itself, just because it's usually the first contact I've had for a while with a concentrated group of Americans. And it's always jarring to find this experience simultaneously pleasurable as well as the tiniest bit embarrassing!

Lemme 'splain. Hm... how to 'splain. Well, maybe it's like this:

I've spent the last year and a half filling the role (more or less unwittingly) of Token American for nearly all in my acquaintance. Not that anyone usually makes a big deal of it; I'm sure most don't even think about it half the time. I certainly don't. But it has nevertheless become a feature of my identity as distinctive as the shape of my nose, more significantly because it's one that otherwise wouldn't even register were I living in, say, Seattle. Thus some subsequent adjustment has been required in order to accommodate this new proboscis on my personality: I've had to figure out just what exactly "being American" means to me, as well as to others, both American and not. It's been quite an interesting, enlightening, ongoing, and surprising process, let me tell you!

One of my first identifiable discoveries should have been obvious: namely, that such a various, multifaceted, multilingual, fiercely multifactioned country as ours is absolutely resistant to sweeping labels and generalities. The usual picture held of us by our bro's across the water comes predominantly from news and entertainment, both of whose ability to truly reflect the beliefs and everyday culture of a (particularly so huge) society is absurdly limited. I've constantly had to point out to people that the stories you see on the news are there precisely because they're newsworthy, which often enough means weird and atypical.

Second, this impossibility of sketching a "typical" American means that I don't have any real reason to wince when admitting my own nationality. Why should I? Yep, I'm from the U.S. Nope, I don't approve of Bush or his war. Yes, I do speak a foreign language. No, I don't eat at McDonald's. But I do enjoy root beer and can't wait to carve into that fat roasted turkey every year, just like in the movies. I wave a sparkler on the fourth of July and think the Second Amendment is a dangerous, ridiculously outdated "right" that has no relevance in today's society. I care about the environment, quote The Simpsons, and don't give a damn about Hollywood gossip. And you know what? I am no more or less extraordinary than anybody else who also whips out that blue passport at the customs check.

All of this means that I, of necessity, purport to know something about my culture. So imagine how startling it is to step up to a gate full of chattering Amis and suddenly see them as an outsider might! I am always a little chagrined to hear that our language really does sound as "rarrarrar" as people's imitations of it, and to notice that more than half the passengers are waiting for the plane in tennis shoes, exactly as stereotype mandates. Not that they're not all individuals inside those sneakers; it just always takes me a bit off guard. I'm not sure what exactly I expect. Maybe my sheepishness simply comes from the necessary recalibration of those idealized images that have been slowly pushing out the normal, sweaty, unfashionable, human reality of any gathering of Earthmen.

This becomes even more pronounced in close, economy-class proximity, when the general American discomfort with physical nearness manifests itself in overly hearty camaraderie. It's kind of sweet, really. In a train full of Germans, people just accept brushing against each other as a natural consequence of the communal effort to get somewhere. On a Northwest flight, however, the guy to my left inadvertently brushes my arm with his jacket and exclaims in dismayed apology. "Oh, excuse me, there!" he announces heartily. "Just getting settled in. Therrre we go. These sure are cramped quarters, huh?" I smile in agreement, half waiting for him to finish with, "Ho! Ho!"

A couple hours later, the guy to my right gets my attention by leaning forward to look into my face and waving a little. I look up; and, indicating his wife's unfinished meal tray, he inquires in a voice disproportionately loud due to his earphones, "SAY, WOULD YOU LIKE SOME ICE CREAM?"

Surprised, grinning, resisting the urge to cover my ears, I shake my head no thanks.

"OKAY, 'CAUSE SHE'S NOT GONNA EAT IT AND IT MIGHT GO TO WASTE."

I make what I hope is an expression appropriately regretful of the tragedy, and we nod and he turns back to his movie. This kind of thing would never happen in Germany. Offer a stranger your unopened ice cream? It's so... cute! Not that Germans aren't polite to each other, but they're just so used to close quarters that there isn't any need for a self-conscious attempt to compensate for being squished together.

I must point out the one thing that almost bordered on ridiculous, though, which occurred when I happened to step on the tip of someone's luggage strap at the baggage carousel. I immediately removed my foot and apologized, but almost not before the owner hastened to apologize to me, assuring me that he didn't want me "to trip up, there." (Ho, ho!) Er... thanks. I think? What? My brother pointed out a potential darker side to this, which might be a sort of passive-aggressive attempt to point out your rudeness by inappropriately taking the blame on oneself. It's a thought. Would correspond well at any rate to a quote I heard recently, claiming that "Germans are too honest to be polite, and Americans are too polite to be honest." Aside from the vaguely distasteful generalizing, I might admit that there's some merit to it -- if only as far as to reflect inexperienced intercultural perceptions. Politeness is all relative, anyway. The guy's behavior at the baggage carousel struck me as all but obsequious, but then many East Asian cultures find us Americans to be loud-mouthed boors.

These thoughts preoccupied me only as long as it took to spot my dad and bro waiting for me at the end of the airport hallway -- after that, I couldn't have given a spare ice cream cup for any focus other than family and laughter around the dinner table.

Academitecture

Nothing skewers the grad experience like PhD Comics...

Costume parties

In case anyone's still interested, there are finally pictures posted from Karnival in Cologne a month ago -- and from our Halloween party, four months ago! Sorry I'm kinda bad about updating this stuff; but they're fun albums, and I figured better late than never. :) Halloween in particular was great, since for a lot of our guests, it was the first time they'd ever really observed the holiday, and we went all out. Mom had sent a big, heavy Mystery Box that turned out to include everything we'd need for a good old-fashioned American Halloween party: shiny foil decorations, recipes, pumpkin-carving kits, even funny little cartoonish invitations to fill out and mail to our friends. We used it all, every last kitschy bit -- and it was a smash!

I'm already planning a 4th of July barbecue. Heh heh, I'll impose my imperialist American traditions, yet!

Du you Sie what I Sie?

As many of our Gentle Readers are aware, German has both a formal and an informal way of saying "you".

"Du" is the familiar, informal address, usually reserved for kids, friends, and family, though sometimes also the occasional stranger who you're relatively sure wouldn't be offended by the insinuation that they're in your peer group. But since the latter case is kinda fuzzy, you're often better off just addressing most strangers by the formal "Sie" (which even insists on being capitalized). This is the respectful form, and what you use with older people, colleagues, strangers, the shopkeeper -- basically anyone outside your intimate circle.

As a barbaric American who doesn't know the meaning of respect, I am fascinated by the use of formal vs. informal addresses. I like to see which one advertisements pick: are they trying to be your buddy, and thus dutz you? Or are they trying to sound professional and respectful, and so the placard addresses you as Sie? The rules are often pretty predictable in social interactions -- for example, you always call an older person "Sie" until they invite you to do otherwise -- but sometimes I struggle to remember who has offered me the use of du and who I still call Sie. A pretty good rule of thumb is the First-Name Basis: since using "Herr" and "Frau" in Germany is considerably more standard than is the use of "Mr." and "Ms." in the States, you can usually assume that someone's introduction of themselves by first name equals an implicit invitation to dutz them. Yet it's still only implicit, and there are certainly cases where first names still Sietz each other (many work colleagues, for example).

Most of the time, native speakers navigate this sea of dus and Sies and ihrs and Ihnens and euchs with ease, and it's only us non-natives who get clammy hands when we want to summon a pronoun and suddenly realize we've got to think about it. So it is sometimes with secret, relieved Schadenfreude that I hear native speakers occasionally getting tripped up themselves.

For example, most of my own learners and I dutz each other. I'm not exactly sure how this came about; perhaps as a result of both establishing a first-name basis in the classroom, as well as an outgrowth of the fact that our main classroom language, English, only has one form of address. Or maybe it's the relaxed, informal atmosphere; or because many of them are older than me; or that I'm not a regular part of the workplace and could therefore subconsciously fall outside the category of "coworker"; or maybe at some point I, the foreigner, unconsciously started it and they all just followed suit. (Did I mention this can get complicated...??) Whatever the reason, we're mostly "du".

So the other day, when Bert showed up to pick me up for lunch, he met a group of my learners as we poured out of the meeting room, laughing, and I went to introduce them. Taking the safe route, I introduced them as "Herr This," "Herr That," and "Herr Lissner."

What followed was an amusing flurry of awkward dus and Sies, liberally peppered with first names followed by "Herr"s. After all, Bert was an unknown coworker; but he was also being introduced as my boyfriend. Was this a work context or a personal context?? I rubbed my hands gleefully.

And yet, I'll admit that, most of the time -- despite the odd complication here and there -- I quite enjoy the Sie and du system. I like the option of showing someone respect (or distance!) in how you address them.

This is not to say that there aren't moments when it can turn nearly surreal. For example, one place where you definitely use Sie is in the doctor's office. I have a wonderful doctor: an older, eastern-European gentleman with solemn brown eyes that remind me of a kindly hound. I've never had a male obgyn before; but this man just oozes competence and professional sympathy. During my last visit, though, I was suddenly struck by a sense of absurdity at making Sie-oriented small talk with someone who is busily engaged in being decidedly more familiar with you than any friend you call "du"! And yet something about it was simultaneously pleasant: the simple use of the formal, businesslike address with each other could make an entire situation formal and businesslike, effectively enabling you to remain clothed in dignity while not clothed in anything else!

I wonder if English once had both a formal and an informal address?

(ps. A random side note about the title. You know that Christmas song, "Do You Hear What I Hear?" Great song. But remember the part where the shepherd boy says to the Mighty King,

Do you know what I know?
In your palace warm, mighty king,
Do you know what I know?
A child, a child shivers in the cold,
Let us bring him silver and gold.

These lines always puzzled me. First of all, to a kid, the shepherd boy's attitude sounds more than a little taunting: "Do you know what I know? Huh? Do you? I bet you don't!" I always thought talking this way to a Mesopotamian king seemed a good shortcut to a beheading. Secondly, silver and gold?? He's shivering in the cold! What this child needs are some blankets!)

Lustige Lektüre

A weekly stop by The Onion ("America's Finest News Source") is always worth it. Check out the two latest "opinion" columns -- even the accompanying photos of the supposed writers are priceless!

Strange... It's Almost as If This Were Some Sort of 'China Town'

You Know What's Stupid? Everything I Don't Understand.

Speaking of Scotland...

I'm reading an adventure book that takes place in the Highlands in the 18th century, and the writing is just sparkling. So much so that I'm compelled to share a couple passages:

"He shrugged, irritably waving off a sudden cloud of voracious midges. Unable to shake their attention, he ducked into the dark, brewery atmosphere of the pub, leaving the midges to mill outside in a frenzied cloud of inquiry."

"The inhabitants of the street scattered before him like geese, startled by the sight of a hurtling Scotsman, kilt flying around his churning knees."

Man! I wish I could write like that. Instead all I can do is chortle appreciatively to myself while the other passengers on the train scootch imperceptibly further away. Ahhh, English.

The Woman with Her Heart in the Highlands

Sooo, I guess it's time to reveal the deeply-hidden secret that there'll soon be another Eggers on this side of the pond. (Er, one that's immediately related to me, at any rate!)

Let me start off by saying that my parents are my role models, albeit in very different ways. In my Mom's case, this is a woman whom the backs of romance novels would describe as an "indomitable spirit".

Most people wonder idly what's "out there." But Mom has never stopped going out to see what's out there. She grew up taking care of her own family, doing all the cooking and cleaning and grocery shopping and paying bills and everything an adult does to care for a household... from the age of ten. Mom is no stranger to adversity. If we're talking about novels, this woman's life could easily comprise one -- although it would likely be rejected by editors as too dramatic to be believable. Her biological mother died when Mom was seven, and she was adopted by her invalid grandmother, who then died three weeks before Mom's eighteenth birthday. She married when she was eighteen, divorced, and joined the Air Force to see the world. She married again while her brand-new, premature son breathed oxygen in a tank in the hospital for seven months, finally surviving against all odds and to the astonishment of his doctors; less than a year later, she added some twins; hopped around from base to base; and six years later busily packed up the young family to move to a foreign country. I still remember standing in the dining room in our house on-base in Spokane: Mom was on the phone with Dad, who had called from work, and they were talking excitedly about incomprehensible grown-up things when Mom almost fell out of her chair. They talked a bit more, Mom hung up, and she turned to me looking like someone who has just been told they're actually the emperor of China. "Pickle!" she said. "We're going to Germany!" (I think my response was something like, "Oh.")

Mom's enthusiasm, though, was catching. The night before we left -- all three of us kids snuggled into one bed in temporary base-housing -- she described how magical it would be to see the world, how much mystery and wonder was Out There.

And she was right. Mom spent the next six years soaking up as much Germany and Europe as any single human could. It was not long after we arrived and she got her own bearings that she took over the USO's "Guten Tag" program, an orientation program geared toward introducing other new Americans to German culture. The Guten Tag program was her pet: just as she continued to do for us, she was devoted to spreading the love of discovery and travel to others. She gently encouraged frightened new G.I.'s and their families to explore their surroundings; to meet the people; to learn some of the language; to try new food and experiences; to blend a bit with -- and appreciate -- the culture; in short, to recognize the opportunity for what it was and not be afraid to discover what could be Out There. She was tour guide and language teacher and cultural liaison all at once (though somehow this woman still found time to bake us cupcakes for school birthdays and chaperone every single field trip!).

Mom's involvement only grew. I think, at one point, she held five different part-time jobs. She found herself mixing cement in Belgium, marching in a Karnival parade in the Pfalz, driving a brand-new Mercedes down the Hockenheimring (the most famous Grand Prix track in western Germany), even delivering newspapers in Landstuhl on the weekends. She still laughs when she recounts sitting in the front yard with her best friend, Nena, as the two of them relaxed in the sun with a bottle of wine. "Oh, damn," Mom had griped, "I can't go shopping in Strassbourg this weekend. I have to lead a tour to Paris!"

When Mom and Dad weren't running around Europe for work, they were packing us up to run around it in their free time. We poked through Italy, Spain, Bavaria, Holland; Mom can still tell you the best places for lunch in random, tiny French villages, how salt is mined in Austria, or which trains to hop through Switzerland.

Of course, when you're a kid, you just accept this as life. It doesn't occur to you that any of this could be unusual, because you don't know anything else. It's only later that you recognize your extraordinary luck in growing up with such a multifacted, various, and yet safe exposure to the New. I sometimes complain about the fact that I don't really "come from" anywhere -- especially in comparison to the bogglingly deep roots that anchor Bert to the very soils of his homeland. But to tell the truth... I wouldn't have it any other way. Maybe that's only because I don't know it any other way.

But Mom does. She grew up thinking of Europe as "a place where rich people go." If anyone had told the overstressed thirteen-year-old, surviving off hard work and government aid, that she'd someday picnic in castle ruins in Germany, she would have laughed before turning back to washing the family's laundry by hand in the bathtub.

So you can imagine the guts it took for her to leave it all behind when her marriage fell apart. Mom and Dad finally admitted, toward the end of our six-year stay in Europe, that it probably Wasn't Meant to Be. A few short months later, Mom found herself in the desert in Arizona, 36 years old and sharing a bedroom with her friend's daughter and wondering how she was going to start all over again.

Well, of course she did. And by 2007, Mom had built up quite a life in Tucson. She had learned a new trade, cultivated a successful career, and even actually owned a house -- her first one -- which she then slowly filled with nice furniture. As she describes it, this seemingly mundane detail was what allowed her to finally feel like a grown-up: gypsy no more! She wasn't moving every couple of years! She was established, had friends and a career and a life, three kids grown and through college, and matching furniture.

And she looked around and said, "This is it?"

I should mention that, while Mom has certainly been persistent in attending college off and on again over the years -- even getting her Associate's Degree while we were little and taking night classes at Pima Community College while I was at the UofA -- she's never had the luxury of being able to study full-time. Yet the woman should have. She loves to learn. I think she was as fascinated by the material while I was in school as I was, and we would stay up long into the night talking about history and language and politics. Especially in recent years, her book collection has become almost exclusively non-fiction, and she's grown into a veritable unofficial expert on the history of the British Isles. She especially loves Scotland: I think something about its wild, dauntless spirit calls to her own.

Well, after a lifetime of taking care of everyone else around her, my mom is finally doing something for herself. She sold her house; she left her job. She said goodbye to her friends. She packed up her car and drove to Pittsburgh to stay with her nephew and sister-in-law for a while.

And in August, she's moving to Scotland.

Congratulations, Mom. Let's go explore the wide, wide world again together!

Aw!

You know what makes my job gratifying?

When I walk into a room where the learners are waiting for me, and they cheer, "Oh boy, the best two hours of my week!"

Viva la language teaching. :)

Fructose and spice and everything nice

So because I am a generally food-oriented person, I thought I'd blog some more about food.

I like food. In fact, I tend to be a relatively constant nibbler from the moment I get up until right before going to bed, popping into the kitchen at least every couple of hours to crunch at a Knusperbrot or snap off another piece from our pile of Tembadoro dark chocolate. It's not particularly much at a time; in fact, big meals make me uncomfortable and sluggish. But it's certainly constant. And I've always been this way -- even in second grade, I remember hating being forced to space out my energy intake into three hulking, inflexible, timed, official "meals" within a long day of school and homework and play. Not allowed to eat in the classrooms in high school, I would chomp carrots and string cheese walking down the hall from class to class, and then save pieces of my lunch for the bus on the way home.

Well, consarn it, I'm a grown-up now, and I'll eat how I want. If left to my own devices, the biggest meal of the day will be a bowl of oatmeal in the morning. This is then followed, over the next several hours, by an assortment of rye crackers with cheese, a hardboiled egg, a scoop of herring salad, some peanut butter right out of the jar, a bowl of mushroom soup, half an avocado, a piece of chocolate, some yogurt out of the tub, and, I dunno, a handful of almonds. I certainly get enough calories (especially if you factor in all the beer and wine that gets drunk around here!). I just don't like to take it all in at once. Maybe this supports Bert's proposition that I am, indeed, a bird. (Or a sheep?)

Herr Bert, on the other hand, will go for hours without even thinking of food. He'll maybe have a cup of coffee in the morning at work, and then sometimes not even take a lunch break and come home with nothing more in his system than that bite of cake from his coworker's birthday. I would be famished. Irritable, shaky, unable to think straight. But he's not even hungry! I try to be polite and space out my munching to coincide with his dinnertime; but usually (unfortunately) I'm so impatient that, within the time it takes to select an evening menu, chop the salad, boil the noodles, heat up the leftover sauce, and even -- good lord! -- make a grocery-store run, I've nibbled enough ingredients to be satisfied before he's even drained the pasta. Most of our "dinnertimes" consist of me sipping a glass of wine while he, with unfathomable patience, starts into the first real bite of anything he's had all day.

His way is probably more practical, not to mention polite. It certainly seems to fit much better with the rhythm of the rest of society, to be able to conform to scheduled big-meal times. But I tried to force myself into that habit for twenty-seven years, and finally, I'm done. I'll eat this banana on the train, thank you very much!

However, no sooner had I taken my rebellious, munchy stand than the situation got even more complicated: namely, the discovery last year that my body has a weird little condition (like 30% of bodies with central-European ancestry, actually, except that only some show symptoms!) called "fructose malabsorption." This means it doesn't produce enough of the enzyme fructase. Sort of akin to lactose intolerance, except with fructose: because I've slowly ceased, within the last few years, to be equipped to break down this complex sugar molecule, it simply passes merrily on through without being digested. Hooray! And like many cases of lactose intolerance, fructose malabsorption often develops in adulthood; but unlike lactose intolerance, there's no little pill to take to supply your body with the missing enzymes (probably because the condition is only just now being discovered instead of simply dismissed into the hazy category of "irritable bowel syndrome"). Other symptoms are fatigue, crankiness, and vitamin deficiency due to the inhibited nutrient absorption. Ah ha, I thought I'd always felt weird after eating apples. But who would have thought that fruit would be bad for you??

There are also some other pretty common foods that contain relatively high quantities of fructose, among them being honey and -- get this! -- wheat. Yep, wheat breaks down into long chains of fructose molecules. (So does spelt, which is an older relative of wheat.) I guess it makes sense, though. Continuing the discussion of artificial behavior patterns developed within the last hundred years, we weren't really meant to eat fruit all year round -- sweets, even less so. No wonder some bodies simply raise the white flag.

So now my eating habits are even weirder. Our cupboards are packed with rye and oats, and I've become a huge fan of the potato. Many vegetables are still a go, but apples and pears may as well have a "Mr. Yuck" sticker attached to them. (Remember Mr. Yuck? The green icky-face sticker that warns children away from poison? Ha ha, good old Mr. Yuck.) The fun part is trying to explain this to people -- especially when visiting an unfamiliar baker. I ask if they have anything 100% rye, and the resulting dialogue is quite predictable:

"No, but this one is mostly rye."

"What is 'mostly'?"

"60%."

"Hm. I'm looking for something without wheat or spelt."

They never hear the "or spelt" part. "Why, yes, we have this whole-grain spelt Health Bread."

"Spelt, you say?"

"Yes. Spelt is healthy."

"Wish I could, thanks. No 100% rye or oat?"

Now, they get snippy. It's like, they've been magnanimous enough to carry an alternative for the gluten-intolerant (for whom spelt is still not an acceptable substitute, by the way!), and now I don't want it? Well! "There is no such thing as 100% rye," they huff. "The most you will ever find is 90%!"

I refrain from mentioning that, in this Marvelous Land of Bread (Germany's lesser-known title, behind Land of Beer and Land of Chocolate), I have found quite a number of specimens in which, although the 2% of salt was listed among the ingredients, there was nary a mention of wheat. I thank them and seek my ryedical fortunes elsewhere.

The good thing about all this business, I guess, is that it keeps my hand out of the cookie jar. And frankly, I'd rather know what the problem is and be able to avoid it -- no matter how weird or impractical -- than enjoy that caramel apple and suffer the mysterious consequences later.

At least coffee, chocolate, and red wine are still on the "friend" list! And french fries. Viva la health food!

Grading fun

Man, Jorge calls it every time!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KATIE!

Katie shows me a thing or two about swimming

My little sister, Kaitlyn, turned six on February 4th! This year, the 4th fell on Rose Monday -- otherwise known as Karnival. So there were parades all over Germany, just in time for one rose's birthday!

I hope you had a great day, Katie!!